The Voice of the Rain Class 11 Book-Hornbill Poem-3 Summary

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,

Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:

I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,

Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,

Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, 

altogether changed, and yet the same,

I descend to lave the droughts, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,

And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;

And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,

And make pure and beautify it;

(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment,

wandering Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)

Summary

• The rain introduces itself as the ‘Poem of Earth’, meaning it is a natural and essential part of the world.

• It rises from the land and the sea as water vapor (evaporation) and goes up into the sky (heaven).

• There, it changes form into clouds but remains the same in essence.

• It comes back down as rain, giving life to the dry land, plants, and seeds, helping them grow.

• The rain explains that it purifies and beautifies the earth and continues in an endless cycle.

• At the end, the poet compares the rain to a song—just like a song comes from the heart of a poet, fulfills its purpose, and returns with love, rain also completes its cycle and returns to nature.

Explanation

• The poem celebrates the beauty of nature and the rain’s importance in sustaining life.

• It highlights the cycle of rain—evaporation, transformation, and return.

• The comparison to a song shows that just like rain, poetry also nourishes the world and has a lasting impact.